You are Invited to Our Thankful Thanksgiving Party!

You are invited to our annual Thanksgiving Party in North Plains, Oregon, where any and all are invited to share in our form of thanksgiving, when we celebrate the friends we’ve come to call family!

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2012, 4PM until whenever

The theme this year is food-based. It is “food you are thankful for.” Bring it and your stories, musical instruments, conversation, games, bathing suit (or skin) for the hot tub (optional), a walk in the woods, and your sense of joy and friendship.

As we traveled the world, we held these gatherings annually, bringing together colorful groups of people. Now that we are off the road, we’ve found great joy in opening our doors to anyone and everyone who wishes to spend some of the holiday time with friends, especially when so many are alone during this time.

In the past few years, our friends have gathered in spite of storms, snow, ice, rain, power outages (we’re prepared), stepping out of their busy lives to meet new people and just relax out in the woods.

We live 30 minutes west from downtown Portland, Oregon. Leave a comment below with your email if you would like to join us and get directions.

The grill will be ready, as will the hot tub. Piano is tuned and ready for playing, as will be the guitars. We have plenty of room for those who wish to spend the night, which many do.

In the past we called this our orphan Thanksgiving, but this year, we decided to call it our Thankful Thanksgiving, to honor all the joy the past few years have brought us, and the wonderful friends that we have met in the beautiful place we now call home.

I never had such and enjoyable evening as last New-Years. There was an interesting mix of guests.. and I never felt as welcome in someone’s home. If anyone else is within a few hours drive, I highly recommend a visit. Lorelle is an awesome hostess.
-Matthew

I’m sorry I took so long getting back to you. I wasn’t sure until recently I would be able to attend. I was able to find a sitter for the kids and my wife is excited to come with me. We are celebrating our 10th anniversary! i can’t wait to see everybody again.
-Matthew

It was lovely to see you and your beautiful wife at the party, and then to follow through on a fun trip to Zoolights on Sunday with all the family. Wonderful! Thanks so much for being such a magical part of my holiday experience!!!

I wish I could come – but I live in Nevada and can’t get away for very long. Obligations up the ying yang. I wrote a post called “My Thanksgiving Gratitude List” and thought you might be interested. It’s pretty long because there are 241 things on it. One of them… Public Restrooms. Can you ever imagine life without them? Maybe you could print it out and spread it around the Thanksgiving table. It might be an interesting topic for conversation. If you do, let me know what happened. It’ll be like I was there too.

That is a harp guitar, created by the player next to Karla, John Doan, Jeffery Elliot, a world-famous luthier, and another man whose name escapes me at the moment. It was one of the first modern harp guitars built in the past 100 years. John has now licensed his design for the modern harp guitar to a company in eastern Europe to begin manufacturing these. John is next to Karla and he is playing his travel harp guitar.

John Doan has released many albums featuring the harp guitar as well as the harpolyre, a two neck guitar made famous by the works of Fernando Sor. His latest album is dedicated to Fernando Sor. He begins a holiday of concerts on tour this week with his famous, award-winning “Victorian Christmas” show, now celebrating 26 years.

We are blessed to call he and his wife among our best friends, and thrilled by all of the talent in our house. He wasn’t the only gifted one, trust me. :D